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| Of the Causes Which Alienate Us from God. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter V.—Of the Causes Which
Alienate Us from God.
10. But when that man of Thine, Simplicianus,
related this to me about Victorinus, I burned to imitate him; and
it was for this end he had related it. But when he had added this
also, that in the time of the Emperor Julian, there was a law made
by which Christians were forbidden to teach grammar and oratory,641
641 During the reign of Constantius, laws of a
persecuting character were enacted against Paganism, which led
multitudes nominally to adopt the Christian faith. When
Julian the Apostate came to the throne, he took steps immediately
to reinstate Paganism in all its ancient splendour. His court was
filled with Platonic philosophers and diviners, and he sacrificed
daily to the gods. But, instead of imitating the example of his
predecessor, and enacting laws against the Christians, he
endeavoured by subtlety to destroy their faith. In addition
to the measures mentioned by Augustin above, he endeavoured to
foment divisions in the Church by recalling the banished Donatists,
and stimulating them to disseminate their doctrines, and he himself
wrote treatises against it. In order, if possible, to counteract
the influence of Christianity, he instructed his priests to imitate
the Christians in their relief of the poor and care for the sick.
But while in every way enacting measures of disability against the
Christians, he showed great favour to the Jews, and with the view
of confuting the predictions of Christ, went so far as to encourage
them to rebuild the Temple. | and he, in
obedience to this law, chose rather to abandon the wordy school
than Thy word, by which Thou makest eloquent the tongues of the
dumb,642 —he
appeared to me not more brave than happy, in having thus discovered
an opportunity of waiting on Thee only, which thing I was sighing
for, thus bound, not with the irons of another, but my own iron
will. My will was the enemy master of, and thence had made a chain
for me and bound me. Because of a perverse will was lust made; and
lust indulged in became custom; and custom not resisted became
necessity. By which links, as it were, joined together (whence I
term it a “chain”), did a hard bondage hold me enthralled.643
643 There would appear to be a law at work in the moral
and spiritual worlds similar to that of gravitation in the natural,
which “acts inversely as the square of the distance.” As we are
more affected, for example, by events that have taken place near us
either in time or place, than by those which are more remote, so in
spiritual things, the monitions of conscience would seem to become
feeble with far greater rapidity than the continuance of our
resistance would lead us to expect, while the power of sin, in like
proportion, becomes strong. When tempted, men see not the end from
the beginning. The allurement, however, which at first is but as a
gossamer thread, is soon felt to have the strength of a cable.
“Evil men and seducers wax worse and worse” (2 Tim.
iii. 13), and when it is
too late they learn that the embrace of the siren is but the
prelude to destruction. “Thus,”as Gurnall has it (The
Christian in Complete Armour, vol. i. part 2), “Satan leads
poor creatures down into the depths of sin by winding stairs, that
let them not see the bottom whither they are going.…Many who at
this day lie in open profaneness, never thought they should have
rolled so far from their modest beginnings. O Christians, give not
place to Satan, no, not an inch, in his first motions. He that is a
beggar and a modest one without doors, will command the house if
let in. Yield at first, and thou givest away thy strength to resist
him in the rest; when the hem is worn, the whole garment will ravel
out, if it be not mended by timely repentance.” See Müller,
Lehre von der Sünde, book v., where the beginnings and
alarming progress of evil in the soul are graphically described.
See ix. sec. 18, note, below. | But
that new will
which had begun to develope in me, freely to worship Thee, and to
wish to enjoy Thee, O God, the only sure enjoyment, was not able as
yet to overcome my former wilfulness, made strong by long
indulgence. Thus did my two wills, one old and the other new, one
carnal, the other spiritual, contend within me; and by their
discord they unstrung my soul.
11. Thus came I to understand, from my own
experience, what I had read, how that “the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.”644 I verily lusted both ways;645
645 See iv. sec. 26, note, and v. sec. 18, above. | yet more in
that which I approved in myself, than in that which I disapproved
in myself. For in this last it was now rather not “I,”646 because in
much I rather suffered against my will than did it willingly. And
yet it was through me that custom became more combative against me,
because I had come willingly whither I willed not. And who, then,
can with any justice speak against it, when just punishment follows
the sinner?647
647 See v. sec. 2, note 6, above. | Nor had I
now any longer my wonted excuse, that as yet I hesitated to be
above the world and serve Thee, because my perception of the truth
was uncertain; for now it was certain. But I, still bound to the
earth, refused to be Thy soldier; and was as much afraid of being
freed from all embarrassments, as we ought to fear to be
embarrassed.
12. Thus with the baggage of the world was I
sweetly burdened, as when in slumber; and the thoughts wherein I
meditated upon Thee were like unto the efforts of those desiring to
awake, who, still overpowered with a heavy drowsiness, are again
steeped therein. And as no one desires to sleep always, and in the
sober judgment of all waking is better, yet does a man generally
defer to shake off drowsiness, when there is a heavy lethargy in
all his limbs, and, though displeased, yet even after it is time to
rise with pleasure yields to it, so was I assured that it were much
better for me to give up myself to Thy charity, than to yield
myself to my own cupidity; but the former course satisfied and
vanquished me, the latter pleased me and fettered me.648
648 Illud placebat et vincebat; hoc libebat et
vinciebat. Watts renders freely, “But notwithstanding that
former course pleased and overcame my reason, yet did this latter
tickle and enthrall my senses.” | Nor had I
aught to answer Thee calling to me, “Awake, thou that sleepest,
and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”649 And to Thee
showing me on every side, that what Thou saidst was true, I,
convicted by the truth, had nothing at all to reply, but the
drawling and drowsy words: “Presently, lo, presently;” “Leave
me a little while.” But “presently, presently,” had no
present; and my “leave me a little while” went on for a long
while.650
650 As Bishop Wilberforce, eloquently describing this
condition of mind, says, in his sermon on The Almost
Christian, “New, strange wishes were rising in his heart. The
Mighty One was brooding over its currents, was stirring up its
tides, was fain to overrule their troubled flow—to arise in open
splendour on his eyes; to glorify his life with His own blessed
presence. And he himself was evidently conscious of the struggle;
he was almost won; he was drawn towards that mysterious birth, and
he well-nigh yielded. He even knew what was passing within his
soul; he could appreciate something of its importance, of the
living value of that moment. If that conflict was indeed visible to
higher powers around him; if they who longed to keep him in the
kingdom of darkness, and they who were ready to rejoice at his
repentance—if they could see the inner waters of that troubled
heart, as they surged and eddied underneath these mighty
influences, how must they have waited for the doubtful choice! how
would they strain their observation to see if that Almost should turn into an
Altogether, or die away again, and leave his heart harder
than it had been before!” | In vain did
I “delight in Thy law after the inner man,” when “another law
in my members warred against the law of my mind, and brought me
into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” For the
law of sin is the violence of custom, whereby the mind is drawn and
held, even against its will; deserving to be so held in that it so
willingly falls into it. “O wretched man that I am! who shall
deliver me from the body of this death” but Thy grace only,
through Jesus Christ our Lord?651
651 Rom. vii. 22–24. This difficilis et
periculosus locus (Serm. cliv. 1) he interprets
differently at different periods of his life. In this place, as
elsewhere in his writings, he makes the passage refer (according to
the general interpretation in the Church up to that time) to man
convinced of sin under the influence of the law, but not under
grace. In his Retractations, however (i. 23, sec. 1), he
points out that he had found reason to interpret the passage not of
man convinced of sin, but of man renewed and regenerated in Christ
Jesus. This is the view constantly taken in his anti-Pelagian
writings, which were published subsequently to the date of his
Confessions; and indeed this change in interpretation probably
arose from the pressure of the Pelagian controversy (see Con.
Duas Ep. Pel. i. 10, secs. 18 and 22), and the fear lest the
old view should too much favour the heretics, and their exaltation
of the powers of the natural man to the disparagement of the
influence of the grace of God. |
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